The slugs that we find in the garden are not the most inspiring creatures. They kind of just look like dark, slimy blobs.

But deep under the sea, their relatives are quite the opposite. And one particular group of sea slugs, called the nudibranchs (pronounced “nood-i-branks”), are especially gaudy looking.

These bizarre-looking creatures are covered in bright and vibrant colours, with psychedelic patterns strewn across their gills, which can come in a variety of shapes, from a mohawk to a shag rug.

Yet even though nudibranchs live in virtually all the world’s oceans, from the deepest depths to the transparent shallows, they are still poorly understood and very little research on them has been done.